Pieces
by your candy perfume girl
Summary: She wants to pick them up, wants to at least try to piece them back together, but they're too sharp. They cut so deep that she thinks it would just be best to leave them where they are. Angsty!Fancy. Warning: rape/incest.


**Disclaimer - **I do not own _Passions_, any of its characters, or locations. They are the property of NBC, James E. Reilly, and Outpost Productions. All I own is the plot. Steal it and suffer.

**Author's Note - **Yeah, so, Reilly ruined this theory. Damn. Just try to pretend that he didn't, okay?

* * *

There's blood on the hem of her dress. 

She's just now noticed it. At first, she wasn't sure what the dried, brown substance staining the costly green fabric of her dress was, but, at closer look, she can see that it's definitely blood.

She's not quite sure how it got there. Grampy was bleeding, yes, but from his neck, and the sticky liquid never quite gushed - just dripped. She should have gotten blood on the bodice of her dress, or around where her knees had been, if anywhere, but the hem?

She sighs. No use crying over spilt milk, she supposes. The dress is ruined, no matter how the offending liquid got there. And so, with a sigh, she carefully folds the green gown and tosses it into her "discard" pile.

* * *

She awakes, screaming. He is by her side in an instant, pulling her into his arms, whispering soothing words and stroking her hair like a parent does a child. As he gently rocks her back and forth, she can hear the frustration in the pattern of his breathing, in the way he sighs. He wants to help her so badly, she knows. It's killing him inside, watching her suffer night after night after night. 

The nightmares started the night of her grandfather's attempted murder, and they've continued ever since. In them, she is small, helpless. But the light is bright, and she basks in it, welcomes it. She feels safe, and loved. She is happy.

A shadow falls over her. Between her and the light stands a man so tall that Fancy thinks that he must be able to touch the sky. At first, his presence does not offend her; but soon, she begins to feel cold. She's quickly becoming claustrophobic, and her lungs are being crushed. She can't breathe, can't move. She is paralyzed, trapped inside herself. A panic seizes her, and just before she thinks it's over, just before she thinks she's lost, she awakens, screaming and gasping for air.

Noah tells her that they're just dreams, that they can't hurt her. She nods, a small smile spreading across her face, masking her inner turmoil. He is wrong, she knows. They aren't just dreams. They are real - were real. They happened.

She's just not sure _what_ happened.

* * *

"I'm sorry, honey, but you said yourself that you were skeptical as to the power of hypnosis, and, as I explained earlier, hypnosis usually only works on the believers and the suggestible." 

Fancy nods. She hadn't really expected her future stepmother's suggestion to suddenly shed a new light on her mysterious dreams; however, at the same time, she _had_ had hopes. They're dashed now, gone with the autumn leaves; she might as well resign herself to a life of insomnia.

She does remember something, though, from her hypnotic state. There had been a... tugging sensation, of sort, as if her brain had been pulling and grasping at some shred of a memory buried beneath millions of heavier, more prevalent memories. She mentions this to Eve, voice daring to take on a hopeful tone. A small smile graces the doctor's lips, and she tells the younger woman that this is good news, indeed. But she cannot place the blonde into another hypnotic state so soon; it would be irresponsible, she adds.

Fancy sighs, then nods, and thanks her father's fiancée. As soon as she has left the doctor's office she allows a determined expression to replace her former blank façade. She has been living under the thumb of these nightmares for far too long. She will find out the truth, no matter the cost.

* * *

Tabitha looks up in surprise at the young woman standing on her doorstep and shifts little Endora to her other hip before answering her daughter's half-sister. "No, Fancy, I'm sorry, Fox isn't here right now. He and Kay took Maria to the children's museum in Boston." Off Fancy's disappointed look, she adds, "Why don't you come in, dear, and have a cup of tea? Perhaps I could help you with whatever seems to be troubling you?" 

A bitter war between conflicting emotions briefly rages across Fancy's face before she politely accepts the eccentric old woman's generous offer. Busy taking in the ancient décor with a fashionista's eye, she is oblivious to the malevolent smile creeping across the witch's face.

Several minutes later, Tabitha emerges from the kitchen, tray with teapot and teacups in hand, to find the half-sisters sitting together on the couch, the elder attempting to engage the younger girl on her lap into a rousing round of pat-a-cake. Spotting the devious twinkle in the blonde babe's eye, she rushes into the room, plopping the tray onto the table with a clatter.

"So, Miss Fancy," Tabitha begins, settling Endora into her playpen, "what seems to be the matter?"

Sighing for what feels, to her, to be the millionth time that day, Fancy opens her heart and lays out her problems for the older woman. Once she's done, Tabitha makes a noise Fancy discerns to be one of hope under her breath and begins rummaging through a few nearby drawers. With a triumphant "Aha!" she procures a small vial of clear, sloshing liquid and an unused hypodermic needle.

"Don't worry," the ancient witch placates, noting the former heiress's dubious expression. "It's completely harmless. I use it all the time - it's hard to remember things when you're as old as me, you know!" The uncertain look still lingering on the younger blonde's face, Tabitha adds, "I must have used this stuff a thousand times, Fancy, and look at me! I'm perfectly fine."

These last two statements should be enough to drive her to run far, far away from the madwoman offering her strange drugs, but Fancy is desperate. She's spent too many nights afraid to go to sleep, afraid of the man awaiting her in dreamland, and too many nights screaming and crying in Noah's arms. She has to know what happened.

So with a dazzling smile she graciously accepts Tabitha's offer and pockets the vial and needle with a hope and a prayer that the price of her curiosity might not be her life.

* * *

He arrives home around four-thirty to find her lying on his couch, face ashen, blonde hair slightly mussed in her dazed state. She tries to stand to meet him, but she collapses into his arms, legs unable to support her unstable body. 

"I have to know," she murmurs as he brushes her hair away from her face. He recoils at the feel of her skin - icy cold, like death. "I have to know, Noah," she murmurs again, pausing to giggle weakly at the repeated syllables.

Before he can ask her what's wrong, he spots the empty vial, the used hypodermic lying haphazardly on the floor. He picks up the vial, searching for some clue as to what contents it once held, but to no avail. He looks back at her with panic in his eyes, fear that he's going to lose this beautiful woman scorching his insides.

"I have to know," she whispers for a third time, and her eyes roll back into her head, frost-blue lids flutter shut. She goes limp in his arms.

* * *

This isn't right. This isn't where she's supposed to be. Tabitha's drugs didn't work - she's only gone back a few months, to Grandfather's New Year's Eve party. Everything occurs just as she remembers - the guests all disperse, off to search for young Jessica, at the mercy that sleazy club owner who tried to kill her and Noah last summer; she stays behind, lamenting over this sudden, vitriolic side of her grandfather that she's never before met. 

And then she remembers everything. She collapses to the floor in agony as the memories all flood back to her like water through a broken dam, their pressure too much to bear. She remembers nights of playing with dolls interrupted by his sudden appearance in her doorway, so big and tall; she remembers nights spent staring, unseeing, at the pale pink roses so perfectly painted by master artists on her bedroom ceiling, holed up inside of herself, somewhere, trying to ignore the claustrophobic feeling preventing her from thinking, breathing.

The weight of the memories is too much; she wants to curl up in a ball on the floor and die, the pain is so great. She had trusted him. He had been the only person who had ever been there for her throughout it all. They just can't be true!

She picks herself up off the floor and banishes the memories to the recesses of her mind. She will talk to him, and he will confirm that the memories aren't real, that she's been brainwashed, or something. They can't be true. It's not even an option.

Only when she confronts him, she sees the fear in his eyes - and fear is something that he does not allow himself to feel. She had thought that the emotion was something foreign to him, but she had been wrong. He had abused her. He had taken away her innocence, her sense of safety. And now he knows that she knows, that it's curtains for him. And he is afraid.

He turns around, shoveling through papers on his desk, and she knows that he's searching for his gun. With frantic eyes, she looks for something - anything - to defend herself with - and sees the knife.

She drives it into the back of his neck. He staggers, and his screams blend in with her own. Blood spurts from his wound, drops plummeting to the ground, staining the hem of her green dress a sickly brown.

She bolts up straight on the couch, screaming and sobbing. Noah is there to catch her, and kisses her, so grateful that she's alive.

"It was me!" she cries, vaguely aware of the new audience surrounding them. "I did it!"

"Shh..." Noah soothes, rubbing her shoulders. "It's okay now. You're safe."

"No, it's not! It was me!" Her mother and Sam exchange puzzled glances, and Ethan steps forward, worry engraved in the lines around his eyes. "I did it!" she screams again, tears flooding down her cheeks. "I stabbed Grandfather!"

* * *

Somehow, she is able to recount her discovery though her tears and sobs. When she is done, Noah pulls her into his arms and holds her tight, shoulders shaking in silent rage. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see her mother, face pale, looking as if she might be physically ill at any moment. She can see Sam and the disgust on his face, and Ethan behind him, his smooth, aristocratic features contorted in fury. 

Their emotions do not comfort her; they are stifling. She does not want their sympathy, their pity. She wants the mysterious nightmares back, along with the insomnia and burning questions. Some questions are better left unanswered, her grandfather once told her, and she'd do anything to give this answer back.

But she can't. The weight of her choice is hers to bear. So she cries in her lover's arms for the innocence lost, the memories regained. She cries for the loss of the man she had trusted above all others, the man who had loved her unconditionally when no one else would. She cries for what feels like centuries, but she knows that only a few minutes have passed when Sam's voice silences her tears.

"Where's Ethan?"

One by one, they all turn their eyes to the spot that Ethan had previously occupied, and then to the half-open door, the empty driveway beyond it. After a moment of confusion, she understands.

"Oh, God."

* * *

When they finally find Ethan, he is in Alistair's study, holding a gun to his former grandfather's head. Angry words spill freely from his lightly chapped lips as Julian fruitlessly attempts to coax the gun from the young man's shaking hand. 

"You raped my sister!" Ethan screams, flecks of spit flying from his mouth, and Alistair just laughs, as if something is terribly amusing. "She was your granddaughter! She trusted you, and you hurt her in the worst way imaginable!" He thrusts the gun forward so that the barrel is touching Alistair's head, screams, "She was just a child! You bastard!"

"Go ahead!" Alistair chuckles, taunting the young lawyer. "Shoot me. Prove that you have the guts to take a man's life."

"No!" she screams. She tries to step forward, but Noah grabs her from behind and holds her back.

It is at this moment that the three men finally realize that they are no longer alone in the study. The eldest meets his granddaughter's desperate gaze, and all her hopes of a horrible mistake, of faulty memories, are dashed by the truth in his eyes. He looks away, and she wonders if he's ashamed of what he's done.

"Ethan," Julian pleads, breaking the silence, "don't do this. If you kill Alistair, you'll go to jail. You've got a wife and a little girl, Ethan. They need you. Don't ruin your life over this worthless piece of trash."

Her father places his hand on the gun, and Ethan's muscles visibly relax. "Just give me the gun, Ethan. He'll suffer a far worse fate in prison."

Slowly, Ethan allows his arm to fall to his side, releasing his grasp on the metal weapon. Julian takes the gun in his hand and smiles grimly at the younger man. "Thank you, Ethan."

Before Fancy can ponder the peculiarity of these words, her father lifts the gun to his father's temple and pulls the trigger.

* * *

Precious red liquid, flecks of gray mixed within, sprays against the wall and carpet as the bullet tears through his head. His body falls to the ground with a distinct _thud_, and a scream reverberates throughout the room. It's so loud, and high, and all she wants is for it to stop; her eardrums are going to burst, and her ears will start bleeding any moment. It's not until her mother claps her manicured hand over her mouth that Fancy realizes that the scream is her own. 

"My daughter!" Julian cries, kicking his father's corpse over, and over. "My daughter!" Sam grabs him from behind and drags him out of the room, his cries echoing throughout the mansion's innumerable corridors.

Fancy stares at her grandfather's body, frozen in place. A wave of nausea washes over her as she realizes that half of his brain is lying on the floor beside him. She crumbles to the ground and empties the contents of her stomach all over his freshly cleaned carpet.

Her life is slowly shattering into a thousand tiny pieces before her eyes, and there's no glue in sight. She wants to pick them up, wants to at least try to piece them back together, but they're too sharp; they cut so deep that she thinks it would just be best to leave them where they are.

* * *

This is not happening, she realizes. This is all a horrible, terrible nightmare. Any minute now, she's going to wake up beneath Noah's black and red sheets, and he will be lying beside her, soft breath the only sound in the silent night, dreaming dreams of football and sex and whatever it is that men dream about. And she'll lay herself back down and cuddle up to him, so safe and warm, and whisper how much she loves him, how glad she is to be with him then and there. 

Alistair's body still lies before her, a bloody, mangled mess. Why is it still there? Why isn't she waking up? Why does this nightmare parade on, unyielding?

A scream fights to escape her lips, but it can't seem to force it's way into the open room. She can never hear herself scream when she dreams. If she screams, and if she can hear it, then she'll know that this isn't a dream, that it's real, and it _can't_ be real, it just can't...

A cold, invisible hand takes her lungs into its unrelenting grasp. The walls are closing in on her, and Alistair's body still lies before her, lifeless. Why isn't she waking up? She's sinking, and so fast, and if she doesn't wake up soon, if this nightmare doesn't end, the blood-soaked floor will swallow her whole, and she'll be lost forever, no trace of her existence left on the earth.

A scream finally frees itself from her pressed lips just before her exhausted body is completely submerged into the black abyss below.

* * *

Something is pulling on her, pulling her up from the recesses of nothingness and back into reality, into her grandfather's study. Noah pulls her up off the floor and tenderly cradles her in his arms like an infant, so helpless and fragile. He turns her head away from the carnage and fishes his handkerchief out of his pocket, wiping the vomit from her mouth and chin. 

"I love you," he whispers, stroking her blonde hair with more love and caring than she's ever known in her entire life. "I'm here. I love you."

Her life might be shattered into a thousand pieces, but at least one piece remains intact.

FIN


End file.
